Truth "A PROSTITUTE PRESS."

NZ Truth, Issue 57, 21 July 1906, Page 4

Truth

"A PROSTITUTE PRESS."

PUBLISHED EVERT SATURDAY MORNING AT LUKE'S LANE (OFF MANNERSSTREET), Wellington, N.Z. Subscription (m advance), 13s. PER ANNUM. ...

SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1906,

CRICK'S CATEGORICAL CHARGES.

■ While a combination of circumstancies, that have yet to be politically, and judicially discussed and decided, have seemed to provide m Mr Crick a scapegoat for his political, professional and personal enemies, Crick's charges ; against a section of the public press are sought to be carefully covered.\?'up under the cowardly cloak of a conspiracy of silence. But this must not be permitted by the people, who have been too long bulldozed and bamboozled, humbugged' and hocussed by the plutocratic penny prints of this city. These "pure and patriotic organs of public opinion," as they are never tired of proclaiming themselves, pose as paragons of a disinterested public philanthropy, whereas they are commercial concerns, run for purposes of private pecuniary profit. To regard them m any other lie:ht would be .to abdicate reason, to Contradict /experience, ana «o condemn

comnionsense. These papers print and publish what pleases the public and pays their proprietors, who generally manage to make the pleasing of the public compatible with the promotion of their own private profit. Nothing that militates against their circulation, or that threatens to scare away advertisements, is permitted ! to appear m their columns. No party or policy that does not promise to be popular is supported or advocated by these "enlightened educators of " public opinion." Pretending to lead, they invariably follow ; and while placating public, opinion by pandering to popular prejudice and passion they keep a careful eye on their circulation and artfully angle foir the people's pence and "fat" advertisements. • • « Conspicuous among this class of newspapers are the "Sydney Morning Herald" and the "Daily Telegraph," against which f Crick's charges of commercial corruption and pecuniary, prostitution were mainly, if not solely, directed. Of the first-named of these two papers, it may be said that it is slightly less mercenary and mendacious than its younger morning contemporary. The "Herald," at least, does make a show of keeping up a reputation for reliability m its news columns, and a pretence of a decent regard for the amerijities and veracities of honest journalism m its editorial columns. The "Herald" is a solemn, staid, stodgy sort of sneet, which has been successfully run as a purely family affair for fully lialr a century. "Old. Granny" has grown rich by being respectable. In her Mother Grundy has f ountl a moss apt pupil m the imitation of her peculiar form of respectability. The pursuit .of the prudish proprieties has to the "Herald" proved the path to pecuniary fortune. By plausibly pandering to the prejudices of a parvenu piutocracy, and craftily catering to contemptible foibles of society cotaries, cunningly cloaking the calico-jimmy crimes of commercial cliques, and condoning the corruption or pirate politicians, the "Herald" has come to be the ideal paper of a boodling bourgeoisie, who prefer to plunder the people by presoriptibn and Parliamentary process than by the bolder and franker methods pf highway robbery and piracy s on the hlgn seas. Pecuniarily plethoric, "Granny" is journalistically typical of tnose mentally costive and morally constipated old women who, personally pure and physically chaste, have a peculiar aversion to sexual prostitution, of which they are themselves incapable, but who, nevertheless, live luxuriously. on the proceeds of prostitution received as revenues from brothels. Such seems to be the moral role played by this sly, sanctimonious sheet m the. journalistic sphere of this State. \ ; ♦ * • Of the "Daily Telegraph," a more brazen bawd never paraded for hire m the paths of journalism. Devoid of all decency, without a semblance of shame, this press prostitute, as Crick characterised it in' the Assembly* on Wednesday night, has proved itself to be the most treacherous and truculent trull of all the common prostitute-papers of the Commonwealth, Under cover of Parliamentary privilege, Crick declared that this strumpet sheet can be bought by any pol^ticiaJn or political party who is willing to bid high enough for her foul favors. He asseverated that he himself had done so ; that the Lyns Ministry had done so ; that he. and his Ministerial colleagues had bought the public support, of the "Daily Telegraph" by privately bribing with money bribes and Government billets the principal proprietors and members of the editorial staff of that paper. Crick further added that m return for billets and boodle, he and his colleagues had been permitted to direct the policy of tl;a "Telegraph"; they had submitted to them for revision articles all. ready for publication ; that they had altered the articles so submitted, so that when published, the articles so altered borea contrary meaning to that originally intended^ and supported a policy: which they were written to oppose, and "vice versa." Crick declared that he had done this himself ; that members of the "Telegraph" staff had borrowed money of him, which they had never repaid ; and that a dipsomaniacal drunkard of an editor, who, disappointed at not getting a billet promised him by the Lyne Government, turned on that Government and was promptly sacked by the "pure and patriotic" proprietary of the "Telegraph" for so doing. This paragon print, which preaches about political purity and Parliamentary propriety, affects to be scandalised at the Land Scandals, cries aloud for the blood of Crick; the very man who declares that he and his Ministerial colleagues m the Lyne Administration bought its corrupt co-operation m public affairs of the State, just as a feculent fornicator would buy the foul favors of a putrid prostitute down a blind alley, under cover of black night. * . .. ♦ * * '.This .is the substance, of what Crick said. Of course he said it in' Parliament, under cover of privilege;. Neither the "Herald" nor the "Telegraph" has had the courage to report Crick's cruel and categorical charges of ■' bribery and corruption made against both of these pure and patriotic organs, these twin popular educators of public opinion. Crick's charges seem to have stricken them dumb. For months and months they have been publishing miles and miles of dreary, delirious diatribes against this man Crick, damning him by dubious innuendo and maligning htm by malicious misrepresentations made under cover of a special and scandalous "Titus Oates" Act of Parliament, specially passefl to protect periurers and shield slanderers from the legal consequences of their own deliberate acts. The "Telegraph," with that contemptible cowardice and ruffianly rancour which are conspicuous characteristics of the conduct of its campaign against Crick, and m favor of public purity and Parliamentary propriety, has been bellowinu;. for a blue moon for the blood of the man who solemnly declares that it is a paper which has been bribed, bought and sold, and whose prostitute embraces are at the call of the highest bidder. This paper, which publishes, daily, whole columns of j ! accusations of corruption against ■

Crick, has neither the courage nor candour to publish a single line of Crick's categorical charges of corruption against the "Telegraph," which he very properly stigmatises as a prostitute, presuming that his charges,- or a tithe of them, are true. •■ * • Are they true ? .Silence is said to give consent to charges made against persons ; why not to charges made against papers? Will the "Telegraph" challenge an investigation of these charges, either before a Court of Law or m the High Court of Parliament ? If not, why not ? The proprietary of this pure and patriotic organ of public opinion, this popular political educator cannot forget that charges fully a s serious and quite as categorical have been made outside Parliament, without the protection of privilege, by me, m the columns of this paper, and the pure and patriotic proprietors of the "Telegraph" have not denied, denounced or disproved them. I have denounced them as being no better than blackmailers ; I have charged them with having been bribed by the Lyne Government to support the Protectionist policy of that Government. I now repeat those charges; and challenge the pure and patriotic proprietors of this prostitute print to carry me before the courts and put me to the proof. This j bawdy broadsheet is nothing better than a plutocratic pimp, which, while barracking for boodle, and a.ocepting political bribes for corrupt journalistic support, attempts to blackmail the legal profession and to bounce public bodies to become advertisers, to bully its country correspondents to send to Sydney "cooked" reports, to make the Public Service Board its debt-collector among Civil servants, and m other ways to hold the community up to ransom. This same precious paragon of public purity, which wanted to snavel the public tramways of this State for a "Telegraph "-Lyne syndicate, now shrieks about Socialism and clamors for the blood of Crick, the man who declares it to be a common press prostitute, whose journalistic favors have been' bought and sold, and are always at the command of the highest, bidder ! ♦. . . « « Surely the silence of such strumous, salacious, strumpet-sheets as these, m the face of Crick's categorical and consistent charges, will give the people of this prostitute-press-ridden State serious pause, and cause them to ask what is the " Telegraph's" latest little game. Is the motive of its damnably dastardly conduct towards "Crick, who ■ has vet to stand a second criminal trial, to be found m the fact that Crick is a Protectionist and a Catholic? Must the secret of this prostitute paper's malignity against a man yet to be tried for his political life ' and civil liberty be found m the sink of Sectarian Savagery ? It looks like it. If it be so— if this be but a preliminary move m the coming Plutocratic-Anti-Labor-Federal campaign of Wrigcler Reid— God help thflP State and the Commonwealth, and let u§ pray that He will, deliver us rrom the bloodhounds of bigotry and religious rancour. JOHN NORTON. Sydney, June 30, 1906..